


what'd you find?

by gay_writes_with_mac



Series: Platonic Oneshots [7]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, The timeline is a mess, can i be bothered to do research? no, friendship fic as usual, mac? doing fic? it's way less likely than you think, read it anyway sluts, this is set after luke goes missing but like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_writes_with_mac/pseuds/gay_writes_with_mac
Summary: Yumiko doesn't know what to make of Tara. But she knows it's something good.
Relationships: Tara Chambler & Yumiko
Series: Platonic Oneshots [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793905
Kudos: 7





	what'd you find?

**Author's Note:**

> We were robbed of a Tara and Yumiko friendship and so here it is

The very first thought that flitted across Yumiko’s mind when she and Tara locked eyes outside the gates of Hilltop was that this was a woman that she didn’t want to fuck with.

Which was strange. Because Tara didn’t look like the people she usually shied away from. She didn’t have the lean, angry look that perpetually seemed to brew on Michonne’s face, and she wasn’t grim-faced and armed to the teeth like Daryl. She was just a woman in her early thirties wearing jeans and trainers, a stressed, angry look on her face. The kind of person Yumiko would have expected to see arguing about a speeding ticket on her way to meet with a client. Not rough, not dangerous, certainly not a killer. Tara just looked like a regular person.

Then she saw her shove a spear straight into the skull of a walker without even flinching and she knew she’d been right the first time.

She didn’t understand how Tara had wound up leader, either. She was smart, organized, skilled in combat, and she had a wicked sense of humor when she let it show that lent to her charisma, but she visibly squirmed whenever someone looked to her for orders and she deferred to the other leader - Jesus - whenever she had the chance.

So when she saw her looking over the fence, watching her and Magna come back after slipping out, her heart dropped into her stomach and she felt the rush of anxiety that hadn’t brushed her since the last time her mom had caught her trying to sneak back in long after her curfew.

“Let me talk to her,” she managed, through a dry mouth and numb lips, even though talking to Tara right now was the last thing she wanted to do. 

Magna just watched her go. The look on her face was mostly worry, tinged with just a hint of smugness that she’d been right all along. She’d never stop being smug, that one.

Yumiko bounded up the stairs to Tara’s post on the fence, trying to keep her shoulders straight. She was the leader of their little group, or at least she acted like it. She had every right to approach Tara like this. Leader-to-leader. Not leader-to-citizen-who’d-fucked-up. Even if it was hard to believe.

“Hey-” she started, a little breathlessly, but then Tara pursed her lips and she took the hint and dropped the pleasantries. 

But before she could get any further, start gushing excuses, Tara cut her off.

“What’d you find?”

Her voice was even. Level. Not angry. Yumiko found herself automatically sighing in relief, a weak, humorless chuckles escaping her lips.

“Nothing.”

The words hurt to say. To admit that they’d risked all this for nothing. Luke was still just as missing, they’d lost Connie and Kelly too for the moment, and now they could be out on their own again. All because of her bleeding heart.

Tara just nodded, slowly. There was a deep sympathy in her eyes, a kind of understanding that she hadn’t expected to find. She didn’t know much about Tara, but from what little she’d managed to gather from the Alexandrians, her past hadn’t been pretty. Strung with losses like pearls on a necklace. She got the sense that Tara’d helped to dig more than a few of the graves inside Hilltop’s walls.

“Look. The next time you wanna challenge one of my decisions...do me a favor and just come talk to me about it.” Tara locked eyes with her, and she looked surprisingly vulnerable. “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. I really don’t. All I know is that I don’t want anyone else to die. And that includes you guys, too.”

She nodded her head to the side, down to where Magna was waiting for her. Tara bit her lip softly, her gaze dropping again.

“I was out on my own for a long time. Outside of the walls. Just out there, with the walkers...and the people.” She laughed, harsh. Brittle. Ready to snap. “I know the value of having been out there. Of knowing what it’s like out there. You’re a leader. You’ve kept your people alive. Come talk to me. I’ll listen to you. I could use the help.”

Yumiko nodded slowly. It couldn’t have been easy for Tara to ask for help like that, to admit weakness. She could admire that, her willingness to put aside her own pride for the good of the people she led. 

“You’re making the right call. We shouldn’t have left. We won’t do it again.  _ I  _ won’t do it again.”

Tara sighed quietly, looking out over the fields. “I didn’t ask for this. Never thought I would end up a leader, not in a million years...didn’t think I’d even still be alive by now.”

“Who did?” Yumiko bumps her shoulder softly, nudging her towards the sprawling fields of Hilltop. “You’re not just still alive, you’ve got all of this now. You’re winnin’ the end of the world, as much as anyone can. There’s no one else I’d rather be answering to.”

Tara laughed softly, pointing towards Magna, just outside the gates. “Go let her know you’re not gettin’ kicked out just yet. Your friends are okay?”

“They said they’d be back soon. We split up. Their choice.”

Tara nodded. “I’ll send them to you when they get back. And we’ll find Luke. I got the sense that he doesn’t die easy.”

“Definitely not. Thanks, Tara.”

Tara gave her a lazy, two-fingered salute as she started slowly back towards the stairs again. The last glimpse Yumiko got of her was her raising her binoculars back to her eyes, studying the horizon for any sign of her missing people.


End file.
